enet.gr
EnetEnglish.gr, 16:13 Friday 23 August 2013

Finos Film takes to YouTube

Since its première in early July, Finos Film's YouTube presence has garnered almost 9,000 subscribers and clocked up nearly 330,000 views

Some of the best-loved films made during the the so-called golden age of Greek cinema are now available on YouTube to view for free.

Set up early in July, the FinosFilmChannel now hosts 95 classics, a number that is expected to encompass the full production of the Finos Film company, which produced 165 films over its 35-year history.

The channel is the brainchild of Yiorgos Xanthakis, a distant relative and heir to the wife of Filopimin Finos, who founded the company in 1939.

"We made a contract with Google and YouTube," said Xanthakis, who now runs Finos. "There was was so much pirating of our films that we thought that instead of pursuing everyone who who illegally upload our movies to YouTube one by one, it would be better for us to upload them legally, through our own channel."

Since its première, Finos Film's YouTube presence has garnered almost 9,000 subscribers and clocked up nearly 330,000 views.

The oldest film on offer is the 1948 comedy "The Germans Strike Again" (Οι Γερμανοί ξανάρχονται), starring Vasilis Logothetidis, while the most popular is "Some Weary Lads" (Κάτι κουρασμένα παληκάρια, see below), which has had 15,500 views since it was uploaded on July 20.

And what's in it for Finos Films? When viewers click on a film, a short advertisement appears (which they can skip after five seconds) and Finos gets a small cut of that revenue from YouTube.

As YouTube appeals to a different audience, the company doesn't believe that the free online availability will affect DVD sales of its films.

Starting in 2007, Finos had its entire archive of 165 films digitally restored by Athens-based company Graal (see video), a project that took three years to complete. The films were scanned using Northlight2, considered to be the best film scanner in terms of resolution accuracy and dynamic range.

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